> Ironically, now Apple is the one stranded on a unique manufacturing process, and AMD/Intel are the ones reducing their wattage.

That's not irony. Irony is that, right now, no other hw manufacturer can compete with Apple. I don't think Intel or AMD will ever be able to compete again until they abandon x86/amd64 and release their own ARM chip. Apple will not sweat before that happens.

AMD does just fine competing with Apple, they had chips competing with the M1 on 7nm silicon, 18 months before the M1 hit shelves. Intel is shaken, but their roadmap is starting to look competitive again for the first time since Skylake. Apple's only defense was their control over the 5nm node, which is gone now. We have 4nm GPUs that make Apple's offerings look like toys, and the 5nm AMD APUs are highly competitive with even Apple's highest-end chip.

Apple made the right choice abandoning Intel on the 10nm node, but they don't have a roadmap from here besides "get better silicon". The competition is hot, and I don't think either my next laptop or desktop will be ARM based (unless someone out-performs Apple).

> AMD does just fine competing with Apple

Right now, AMD is showcasing a processor, the Ryzen 7040, and proudly comparing it to last year's M1 Pro using cherry picked benchmarks. That's how its going to go from now on. They have nothing to compete with M1 Max or Ultra, or Apple's current flagship processor, M2 Max, and by the time they do, Apple will have left the M2 Ultra behind and will have the M3 Max as their flagship processor. That isn't competing, that is chasing.

Is that not impressive? AMD is proving that they can engineer an x86 CPU that's comparable to ARM on the same silicon. That's kinda crazy, especially once you consider that it's roughly the same power envelope as M1/M2.

If we're only getting more 20-30% spec bumps every 18 months from Apple, it sounds like the race is pretty close.

I honestly don't see ARM as an advance in performance over Intel/AMD. It's more an advance in efficiency. Intel and AMD can make faster processors, I just don't think their power draw can compete with ARM, and I don't understand why they don't abandon placing such a premium on backwards compatibility. Just who is running 35yo platform-specific software?! They're holding everything up. EOL them. Move on.

The strategy is to follow iPhones/iPads and have both M1 and M2 options.

So there is no point releasing a major update and making the M1 look obsolete. They just need a solid update.

I think that's a convenient marketing justification for the fact that they can't get better silicon. There's every reason in the world to make the M1 look obsolete if you can, but the bum-rush for TSMC's 4nm process may have locked that option out.

In time we'll see if there are greater improvements coming. Something tells me that we're never going to see a performance leap comparable to the 10nm -> 5nm one, though.

It's not a marketing justification. It's the product strategy that underpins the iPhone/iPads growth.

The whole approach centres around consumers feeling like if they do purchase a cheaper M1 model that it is a great, future-proof device and not an obsolete one.

Right, and how did they take that into account when they lambasted the Cronenberg i9 Macbooks for the sake of selling M1s?

To Apple, marketing and product strategy are deeply synergistic. It is for every company at their scale, and especially when you have to sell something direct-to-consumer.

They didn't. Everyone knew that i9 were garbage.

And the only people buying them were those that needed Intel apps that weren't yet optimised for M1.